A collection of my thoughts, muses and creative pursuits from the learning and education space! A serendipitous journey over technology and operations led me into learning and education and here I am on the cusp of my entrepreneurial journey.

Sunday, April 21, 2013

Work creation

I was talking to my uncle recently and we happened to talk about organizations. He runs practically a lean single person operation and hence his constant focus is to prioritize and do only the things that are the most important for his customers. Anything else is de-prioritized.

Unfortunately, as organizations grow larger, this focus is lost and there is a lot of pride in 'activity'. As they say in spirituality, mistaking 'activity' for 'action' is very common. 'Activity' and 'Action' are one and the same. A lot of 'activity' does not contribute anything for the 'economy'.

It is very tempting to create work where none exists - what we miss out that is all that 'work creation' if it does not result in meaningful contribution to what the customer wants. Not only does it waste time but also puts you back because ultimately, someone has to prioritize this over some work that would have helped the customer in the first place.